


Chance, Second Chance, Last Chance

by Garonne



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Past Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 23:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8943730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/pseuds/Garonne
Summary: The encounter came about quite by chance, unexpected and unwelcome for all parties concerned.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sans_patronymic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sans_patronymic/gifts).



> Many thanks to my pseudonymless beta-reader!

.. .. ..

The encounter came about quite by chance, unexpected and unwelcome for all parties concerned. 

I had arranged to meet Watson on the steps of the Lyceum at eight o'clock that evening, but instead I called to his surgery at five, having concluded my business for the day some hours earlier than anticipated. His assistant showed me into the waiting room, empty now at the close of day, and assured me Dr Watson would be free in a few minutes.

I took a seat and picked up a copy of the London Illustrated News. I browsed the political section while I waited for Watson to finish with his final patient.

Watson shared his consulting-rooms with another doctor, who had his residence in the building. Although I had arranged for a distant relation of mine to buy Watson's old practice after my dramatic return from the dead two years before, expressly for the purpose of inducing him to move back to Baker Street with me, I had not been able to keep him away from his forceps and pill-bottles for long. He had soon been persuaded to take on a handful of his old patients, fitting them in around his work with me.

I had been waiting only a few minutes when the door opened and Watson came into the room, saying something over his shoulder to another man who was following closely behind. They were both laughing, their faces filled with uncomplicated good humour.

"Hullo, Holmes," Watson said in surprise when he saw me. "You're early."

I rose to my feet, and now I could see the man behind him more clearly. This was no patient. Dark brown hair streaked with gray, the smell of Cavendish tobacco, a faint hint of antiseptic -- I recognized him instantly as the man about whom I had been suffering agonies of curiosity and jealousy for the past three months. 

This was the first time I had ever come face-to-face with the fellow, but I had learnt a great deal about him from various clues that clung to Watson's person. I threw a quick glance at Watson now, wondering how he would handle this. It was an awkward situation, one on which the etiquette guides had no advice to offer: introducing the old lover and the new.

Watson cleared his throat.

"Holmes, allow me to present to you Dr William Oxley, a colleague of mine. Oxley, my friend Mr Sherlock Holmes."

Dr Oxley and I shook hands.

"Are you also in general practice, Dr Oxley?" I asked politely.

Out of the corner of my eye I was watching my poor Watson. His anxiety and embarrassment were hidden behind a very thin veneer. I wished I could say some reassuring words to him. He had nothing to reproach himself with, and nothing to hide -- beyond the mere fact of his liking for men, which of course I was already well aware of. I had renounced all claim on his physical affections many years before, and Watson was not made for a celibate life. Indeed, I was surprised he had waited so long. I knew Oxley was his first lover, of either gender, since my return to London two years earlier.

Dr Oxley and I made polite conversation, during the course of which it emerged that Oxley was an ophthalmologist, that he had met Watson at a meeting of the Royal College of Physicians, and that he was familiar with my early work on good practices in dissection. 

Watson kept largely silent during this conversation, speaking up only when Dr Oxley called on him to confirm a point. I judged their acquaintance to be of several months' standing.

Oxley was dark-haired and leanly built, not unlike myself. He was, however, considerably shorter than me, as I noted with childish satisfaction. He was attractive, if one's taste ran to smooth, flashily dressed men, which mine did not. Despite my jealousy -- and I was self-aware enough to know I was racked with the emotion -- I was forced to admit he seemed both intelligent and amiable. I wondered just how deep the attachment was, on either side.

Watson and I had not exchanged overt declarations of affection during those years we were most intimate. Yet I never had any doubt of his heart. We lived together, worked together, and shared everything of ourselves. In retrospect, it was one of the happiest times of my life.

And yet after only two years of this, I drove him into Mary Morstan's arms.

I have never fully understood my own motivation. Part of it was rooted in knowledge of my upcoming war with Moriarty, at that point still several years in the future: some ridiculous notion of noble self-sacrifice, and a desire not to leave Watson alone in the world after my own probable departure. Part of it was the knowledge that Watson loved Mary, of course, for all that he loved me too. I desperately wished him to have everything Miss Morstan could give him. Another part of my motivation was much more selfish: I had never been comfortable with the compromises that a shared life demanded. And underneath it all, there was a streak of pure arrogance, pure horror at the idea that Sherlock Holmes should depend on anyone for anything. 

So Watson married Mary, and I was able to smile and clap at his wedding with something very close to sincerity. 

I wondered how much Oxley knew of all this. Very little, I hoped.

"Well, I mustn't linger any longer," Oxley said at last. "I have a dinner engagement, and I believe you two gentlemen are bound for the theatre." He smiled at Watson, a discreet but peculiarly intimate expression that pierced me straight to the heart. "I shall see you on Wednesday, Watson. I count on it." Watson nodded, and Oxley turned to me. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr Holmes."

He shook hands with me again, and then with Watson -- my gaze went to their clasped hands despite myself -- and finally took his leave.

The door swung shut behind him.

Watson turned to me.

"Holmes -- " he began.

"What a pleasant fellow," I said before he could speak. "He has some very sound views on the proper treatment of a cadaver." I turned away from Watson to pick up my hat and gloves. "If we hurry we'll still have time to dine on the Strand before the play. That's what I came here to propose."

"Holmes," Watson said again, more firmly this time.

I turned to face him.

Upon my return to Britain after my supposed death and resurrection, we could have taken up again where we left off years before. Watson made his feelings on the matter as clear as he possibly could without risking a direct rejection.

At the time, I remember, I was astounded that he could even bear to be in the same room as me. I had treated him abominably, allowing him to mourn me unnecessarily for three long years. After I had arranged things so he would move back into our Baker Street rooms, I was reluctant to let our association go beyond the bounds of friendship -- reluctant to accept his undeserved forgiveness. Now, it seemed, it was too late. 

"Please believe me when I say I was very pleased to meet Dr Oxley, Watson," I said. "I wish you most sincerely happy."

Watson's eyes widened. "I am happy, I suppose." He sounded more doubtful than anything else. "But Holmes -- "

"Well, then," I gestured towards the door. "What have you to say to dinner?"

This time, he allowed himself to be cut off. "Let me just lock up here first."

It was a few minutes later, as we were leaving, that I heard him add quietly, "But not as happy as I could be, Holmes."

I stopped short in the doorway. He met my eye.

"Not as happy as I could be," he repeated.

I had always believed Watson to be one of the bravest men I knew, and in that moment I was sure of it. I could not have done it myself, but Watson did not flinch before laying himself open time and again to my rebuffs, to my rejection.

"Forget about dinner," I said abruptly. "Forget the play. Come home with me, Watson."

Only now that he was smiling did I realise just how tense and strained his expression had been, since first he stepped into the waiting room.

"With all my heart, Holmes," he said warmly. "With all my heart."


End file.
